


Why?

by Davechicken



Series: Kylux - Fluff & Angst [75]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-09-01 09:26:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8618965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: Hux does not understand Kylo's training.





	

Hux looks at the Knight beside him. Barely upright, hand on his side, saber in his hand. He’s a wreck. He’s barely patched together since the fall of… since the fall of the Starkiller. Stitches that only just contain his insides where they are meant to be, a body that he _knows_ is wracked with pain.

 _Bring Kylo Ren to me. It is time to complete his training_.

The General had taken one look at the broken thing on the snow, a bird with shattered wings and no flight left in it. He’d seen how destroyed the Knight had been, and his anger and his frustration had been undercut with something he’d never really felt before.

Pity. Empathy.

It was a dangerous sensation, to sympathise. Kylo had (like Hux had) fucked up well and truly. The nasty little voices in him had said to blame him and Phasma for the problems, to protect his own ego. But he’d seen - in the snow - what the Order demanded of her children, and he’d been disgusted.

He’d carried Kylo back to safety, nursemaided the worst of his wounds, and stood ready to hold him up as they’d entered Snoke’s presence way, way too soon. 

Kylo was in no fit state to complete anything but a course of antibiotics.

But he’d agreed to go, and Hux had needed to go, too.

He _hadn’t_ expected the ‘bring him to me’ to be meant literally, but when Snoke had commanded the Knight’s hand to sever the head from Hux’s shoulders, he’d realised he was both courier and commission. Either his failure with the weapon had rendered him obsolete, or he was simply secondary to Force training.

Eyes closed, not wanting either of them to see his fear or sorrow. He’d prayed for it to come fast, and heard a quiet: “ _No_.”

No. Had Kylo Ren ever told the Leader ‘no’ before? Hux’s eyes had opened - one after the other - in outright confusion.

“I gave you an order,” Snoke had said.  


“And I am refusing to carry it out,” Kylo had explained. “You wished for me to complete my training. This is how I do it. _By making my own choice_.”  


And the man had stormed out of the room, fighting to conceal his limp.

Hux couldn’t meet Snoke’s gaze. How could he? He’d just been marked for death, and he’d never be able to trust him fully. Not ever again, now. He’d snapped his heels, and followed Kylo out of the room. Not subservient, but aware he lived only because of Kylo’s grace. 

Not subservient. _Grateful._ Another first, and he corners Kylo in the elevator. “Why?” he asks, wanting to understand.

“You do not need to die.”  


“But… _why_?” They had been nothing but antagonistic to one another, all these years. A moment of pity in the snow didn’t undo that. Was it just a fuck-you to the Leader? Likely, which meant it being him was coincidental to his survival, much as his commanded execution was.  


His death sentence and reprieve both examples of how he - as himself - didn’t matter. His position, his role: those mattered. Not Hux _qua_ Hux.

“Your death served no purpose. I killed Han Solo. There was no need to kill you, too.”  


“And no need to keep me alive?” Hux pushes. “So killing me was moot?”  


“I would prefer a galaxy where you existed, to one where you did not.”   


Hux doesn’t understand. He just. His mind stops. None of this makes sense, and even if he had the Force he isn’t sure it would, then. 

His death - his life - all at the mercy of things he’ll never understand. He’s just a cog in the Order’s machinery. Just a part that will grind until its teeth go, and then be molten down. He’s been loyal his whole life, but now it doesn’t feel as good as it did the day before. Now it feels… off. Wrong. _Sour_.

Kylo moves to leave the box, to continue on without him, and Hux watches him go.

 _Why_.

He still doesn’t know. He’s not sure he ever will.


End file.
